


Punch Lines

by Anonymous



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bad life decisions, Gay Richie Tozier, Grief, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mentions of Canonical Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-14 02:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20592824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Richie Tozier comes out, 27 years later.





	Punch Lines

Richie spun around on his chair when the dressing room door slammed open. 

"Not bad," his manager said and winced when the door hit the wall with a bang, "Not bad at all. Quite good, I would even say, although you really need to be more enthusiastic in the second half, that joke about the Tinder catfish didn't land at all. Still, a billion times better than when you forgot two thirds of your material." 

"You're never going to let me live that one down, will you?" Richie asked darkly, wiping away at the last beads of sweat on his forehead with a tissue. He would never understand why stage lights had to be hot as hell. 

"No way, the video still pops up on my Twitter feed all the time. Mind if I do?" Kevin pointed at the decanter of ice-cooled water someone had left on his makeup table and went to pour a glass before Richie could respond. As always, Richie noticed with irritation, Kevin looked perfectly put-together, despite having spent most of the pre-show hours running around backstage in a flurry of demands for the stagehands and complaints about the catering. 

Kevin noticed Richie's serious expression and paused, still holding the decanter in one hand. "What is it?" 

"I need to tell you something," Richie said and steeled himself, keeping his voice as flat as possible. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to do this now, exhausted and sleep-deprived after a show, with the two final stops on his tour still coming up in the next three days. But he knew that if he chickened out now, there would be no saying if he'd do it at all. "After this tour is over, I'm never going to perform someone else’s material. Only my own stuff from now on, and," he held up his hand when Kevin tried to interject, "I'm pretty sure I'm gay." 

It was the first time he'd said it out loud, the first time he'd ever really permitted himself to think it. 

"What the hell?" Kevin turned and kicked the door shut behind him with his foot, "You're not gay."

Of course, _that_ was the only part of the message that Kevin acknowledged. He liked Kevin, he really did, the best manager he'd ever had, the man who had skyrocketed his career and made him into a viral sensation, but if he was being honest, the thing he liked the most about him was how indulgent he was. So what, maybe Richie liked having his every wish anticipated, liked having someone at his side who would judge his life choices plenty but would never say no. Though that indulgence clearly didn't seem to extend to all things. 

"Oh, I'm not? Thank you for telling me. I was going through a crisis here. You have really cleared this up for me." Part of him had hoped that once the words were out, he'd be relieved, that the mist that clung around that part of his life would dissipate into memory. And to an extent it was a relief, the clean outline of the words standing irretrievably in the room between them. Didn't make him any more certain about them though. 

"You've had a lot of girlfriends," Kevin informed him, leaning against the shut door with his arms crossed, and, after a quizzical glance from Richie added: "Like. At least three. I think you're just going through something because you're single and lonely."

"Wow, _three_ whole girlfriends? Well then."

Kevin shook his head and sipped from his water. "I'm too tired to deal with this right now Rich, go bullshit someone else."

Richie scowled. That was the problem with being a comedian; the one time in your life you were trying to be upfront about your imminent identity crisis, it was the biggest joke to everyone else. As if someone who made your mom jokes for a living couldn't also be on the verge of a sexuality-induced nervous breakdown. He contained multitudes; he could do all of those things at once. 

"I'm not being facetious, Kev, not this time. I'm for real. No more jokes about masturbating to my girlfriend’s friend's Facebook page. I fucking hate that shit, I'm not doing that anymore. My own material from now on, and I'm not going to pretend to be straight, fuck the ratings."

"Are you being serious right now?" Kevin gestured with his glass, looking at Richie as if it was all beginning to dawn on him, "Because I gotta say, Richie Tozier the low-key misogynist who complains about his ex-girlfriends is a seriously different shtick than Richie Tozier the depressed homosexual. Your marketing people are going to hate us."

"I don't see why me being gay would cancel out the misogynist thing, I could make jokes about how repulsive I find breasts, or—"

"This isn't funny Richie."

"No? Because I'm finding all of this hilarious," Richie hissed through his teeth. The atmosphere in the dressing room was tense for a moment, Kevin still staring at him as if trying to decide whether he should anticipate a punch line or not. If only there was a punch line, one that could dismiss the part of his mind that his return to his hometown had opened, that could bring him back into his old life of shitty comedy and girlfriend jokes, Derry only a distant flicker of recognition that he could attach no specifics too. But the clown was defeated now, and there would be no going back. What a shock it had been, waking up one day at the age of forty with the mind splitting realization that he'd been living only part of a life. His new life: more sober, more brutally in focus, like waking up cold and alone early in the morning.

"What about your girlfriends? What was the name of the last one— Maria? Marian? You seemed pretty smitten with her."

"Kev, Marian was _three years ago_ and we only dated for four months tops. She broke up with me when I couldn't be assed to meet her parents." 

Kevin looked down at the floor, then got up to sit on the corner of the makeup table, his feet just dangling above the floor. Already, Richie could see that he was mulling things over, probably drafting a million emails and a statement for his Twitter account in his head, doing some damage control. He did like Kevin, he really did.

"Okay, fine, fine, I believe you, this is all just very sudden, even coming from you. Especially after you just had a complete breakdown and ran off to the middle of nowhere two weeks ago," he paused, "This wouldn't have anything to do with that incident, would it?"

Richie shrugged. 

"You worry me, Richie," he sighed, then suddenly got very still, "Wait— you said you are pretty sure you're gay? Not certain?"

"Er. Yes. In theory? Hypothetically. In the mind but not in the flesh, if you catch my drift." 

"So you mean you have never— but you still think that you are? You're giving me one headache after the other here, Tozier." Kevin placed his empty glass on the table and rubbed at his eyes. "Are you um. Planning on confirming it any time soon? Because if we do this and then you eventually realize that you're not, then..."

Richie gave him a guilty look. It took a moment for the penny to drop. Kevin's eyes went wide.

"Oh no, no way in hell, I'm not in high school anymore, I'm not here for you to try me out like I'm a perfume sample because I'm the only gay person you happen to know and you're bored or single or going through a midlife crisi—"

"There was a boy. In my school. He wasn't the only one but— he was my best friend. I didn't realize for so long, I thought that—. Never mind, it doesn't matter now. He's gone anyway." Eddie in the hammock, his pale thigh haphazardly aligned with Richie's. 

"Well, fuck, Richie."

"Don't I know it," Richie said and pressed a hand to his head. He needed a drink. Or a newly minted cocaine habit. 

"This is some fucking situation man. I mean, how does that even work. I know you grew up in a homophobic shithole, but you left Derry what, 20 years ago? How could this stay buried for so long? Did you never even wonder?"

"Would it placate you if I told you that I had an encounter with a primordial clown who made me forget pretty much all of my childhood, Kevinsky?"

"Are you sure you didn't hit your head during your trip?"

"Fine, fine", Richie sighed and spun around on his chair to face the mirror, his hands fiddling with whatever makeup tools had been left out. It was easier not doing this face to face. "I don't know. Maybe I did get hit on the head. That would explain a lot. But you know when you're a child and it's like...not even a bother to you? Like, you haven't even popped your first boner yet, but you know you will grow up to like women and get married and it's all fine? And there's nothing to worry about, you know the trajectory of your life. White picket fence and 2.5 kids and life insurance and all that bullshit. And then that moment never happens, but you think it will, any day now, you know that, and you date women and it's fine really, never anything special, but you figure this is just the way things are, that everyone lives like this, that love is just an invention the corporations made up to sell you valentines chocolate or sex toys or whatever—," he glanced up at his reflection in the mirror, swallowed. "Actually, I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Never mind." 

Seeing Eddie again after 27 years, feeling like something in him had shifted, that in his hands he held the key to a door he'd forgotten existed. 

And of course, like some fucked up jigsaw puzzle scattered through his life, there had been so much evidence for what Richie himself had only figured out a few days ago. The boy in the arcade, another boy at university. A co-worker in a bar he'd worked at briefly before signing with his first manager. Whenever he broke up with his latest girlfriend after a few months and was secretly pleased that he had an excuse to lay off the dating scene for a while. The pit in his stomach whenever he saw gay couples in public, just going about their life; he'd always assumed that came from some latent homophobia he still carried within, the sort of attitude a childhood in Derry would inevitably instill in you. And then— of course, Eddie. Eddie, on whom all of this hinged somehow. 

"What about your girlfriends?" Kevin asked him softly.

"_Please_. You said it yourself; I always liked being single and miserable. I have never been with anyone for longer than a year, and, frankly, I always thought that was because I was too much of a piece of shit to care, because I couldn't be bothered to put in the legwork and make an effort, but now, I wonder—"

"Jesus."

"Yeah man." 

Kevin paced the length of the room, rubbing his hands together in thought. Richie's coming out had rattled him, but he was slipping back into hyper-attentive manager mode. "Okay. Fine. Fine. We can do this. I'll figure something out. Now what?"

"My earlier offer still stands," Richie said carefully. The nature of his feelings towards Eddie were perfectly clear to him, and he knew what he'd wanted to do with Eddie (a pang of guilt at thinking of Eddie in a carnal manner, somehow even more shameful now that he was gone), but whether that extrapolated to men in general— well, he certainly had some guesses about that. But all of that remained hypothetical, a vague idea about himself that hung over his head.

"So, to clarify, you want to hook up with me to figure out if you're into men or just a heartless, apathetic motherfucker?" 

Richie's lips quirked. "I don't need confirmation for the second thing," he leaned forward in his chair, "Listen, I don't want to pressure you into anything. And uh, this probably isn't great as far as our professional relationship is concerned, but if you're up for it, you're gay, unless that has changed in the last sixty seconds, and you're attractive, and honestly? A no strings thing. Why the hell not. I'm a celebrity now, I'm pretty sure I have some catching up to do when it comes to ill-advised sleeping with my managerial staff." After a pause he added: "You don't think I'm ugly, do you?"

Kevin looked him up and down, brows furrowed. "You're alright, I guess. A bit old."

"You know how to make a man feel loved." 

"I don't need to explain why sleeping with you would completely destroy my integrity as your manager, do I?"

"God no, let's skip that bullshit. We're both adults, right? What's the worst thing that could happen? That I'll be the shittiest lay you ever had because I've never touched dicks with another man before?"

Kevin sighed like he did when Richie got too crass in publicity interviews. "Okay, fine," he put up his hands, "Fine. You are right, this is probably the worst idea you've ever had but you know what? Fuck it. Let's go, see where the night takes us. But I'll tell you again— I'm not here for you to experiment with. And if either of us wants to call it quits—"

"Duly noted. Can we leave now please? I'll drive us to the hotel."

"Nice place, this." The hotel suite _was_ very nice, blue-carpeted floors and white furniture and massive windows. Richie's show had been making big enough bucks recently that he'd stopped staying over in decrepit little motels when he was on tour and instead had moved into hotel suites with multiple rooms and alcohol cabinets. 

Kevin stuck his head out of the attached kitchenette. "Thanks, I booked it myself."

Richie wandered through the living room, poking at bits and bobs of the decorations, which turned out to be quite gaudy the longer you stared at them. 

"You— err, you don't have a partner, do you?" He called out to Kevin, vaguely chastised that he knew so little of his own manager's private life. 

"Why, you think you're hot enough that I would cheat on my boyfriend the moment I get a chance to fuck you?"

"Am I?"

A sigh from the other room. "No and no, to both of your questions. It has been a while for me too. You want some wine?"

"Please."

Kevin brought their wine glasses and they settled together on the couch, facing each other. 

"To the new Richie Tozier. No longer masturbating to his girlfriend's friend's Facebook page," Kevin toasted. 

"I'll fucking drink to that," Richie muttered under his breath and they clinked glasses. He immediately downed half of his wine, then pressed his hands to his jeans to hide how badly they were shaking. After another glance at Richie, Kevin nestled against the throw pillows. 

"I had a boyfriend once," Kevin started, "his parents were devout Catholics, but he told me over and over again how glad he was to be over that, how much of an atheist he was, how he didn't give a shit about God blah blah blah. And then, one night, I found him praying in the bathtub after sex."

"Cool?"

"Yeah, crazy guy. Can't believe I stuck with him for that long. Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is: please tell me if you plan on praying in the bathtub."

"Will let you know if I spontaneously become Catholic."

"Great. Fantastic." He refilled their glasses, looked at Richie's hands for a second before Richie pulled them away. "You know, you're kind of worrying me. You haven't been yourself after that botched show, and the state you were in when you came back, I really did worry for you. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you felt like you could trust me with all of this, and the gay thing— I'm not going to pretend it's ideal, not with the persona we have built up for you, but it's going to be fine, we can weather this," he looked up, "I just hope that you're okay, Richie."

Richie had no idea how to answer that. "I'm...managing," he tried. His mind, which usually supplied him with a near endless stream of jokes and sarcastic quips, was blank for once.

Kevin gave him a small smile and placed his empty glass on the coffee table. Carefully, he took Richie's face in both hands and held him like that, observing him. Richie gazed back at him, looked at him in a way he wouldn't have permitted himself to do just a few weeks ago. He was quite handsome, dark brows and dark eyes, his features somehow familiar in the hazy yellowish glow of the lamps. Richie wondered if Kevin was lonely too, if that was why he had taken him up on his ludicrous offer with barely any complaints. They had worked together for five years, but he'd never bothered with getting to know Kevin on a more personal level. Back then, there were so many reasons to keep his professional and private lives separate, barricades that were blurring now, that were so much less defined.

When it became clear that Kevin wouldn't move in, wouldn't break that final barrier between them, Richie leaned forward instead, pressing their lips together, pausing there for a moment. He felt as if he was on the precipice of something; that no matter what he did now he was about to cross into something indelible, something that would glue itself to him forever. 

Kevin pulled back, still looking as if he was trying to figure him out. Embarrassment passed over Richie like a wave, and he regretted it for a moment, but then they were kissing again, clinging to each other on the sofa. It was easier than he'd expected, more instinctive than it had been with a woman. Richie pressed his hands to Kevin's jaw, tried to pull him closer, their kisses deepening and becoming so forceful that their heads almost knocked together. Minimizing the space between them, focusing on the sensations of his body where they were overriding the thoughts that were going through his head, strangely removed from the scene but still feeling everything deeply. This was somehow both a thing he was doing with his own body and something he stood outside of. Still, he pressed on, grabbing at the hems of Kevin's shirt and pushing him down. His glasses fell off his face but he didn't care and pressed on, doing his best to get them horizontal. 

"Rich, Rich," Kevin breathed and pawed at his shoulders, but Richie nestled at his neck, kissing just below his ear.

"Richie, I'm—," Kevin moaned softly but pushed Richie off in a brisk movement, scooting back to his side of the couch. Richie kneeled at the other end, heated and mortified.

"Sorry, I—"

"No, No," Kevin shook his head, let out a breath and combed a hand through his hair. The tip of his nose was flushed red, a sight that made Richie flex his hands. "I'm just— I mean. Wow. I'm pretty sure I haven't made out like that since I was a _teenager_." They laughed together, Richie's chest suddenly a lot lighter. He didn't remember any of his teenage make-outs being like this, his body strumming and tense, the sound of his own blood in his ears. The wine buzzed at the back of his mind, but it was a pleasant feeling. 

"I guess that, uh, confirms some things for you?" Kevin looked a bit dazed.

"Take a guess, dipshit," Richie muttered. He moved towards Kevin, but Kevin shook his head again.

"Wait, let's move this to the bedroom. I'm far too old to put out on the sofa," he paused, "like a bloody teenager."

Richie bent down to retrieve his glasses where they had fallen under the couch, then went into the bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face. The water did its trick to sober him up somewhat and his earlier adrenaline rush was receding, leaving him sore and drained. His reflection in the mirror stared back at him wearily. God, no wonder Kevin had assumed he'd been hit on the head. Without the distraction that Kevin had provided, everything from the past few weeks was coming creeping up on him, glimpses of Derry, of Pennywise, of the sewers. With a jerk of his hand he turned the faucet off, gripped the sink for a moment and then strode into the bedroom, mind blank.

Kevin was lying on the king-sized bed, idly scrolling through his phone. He looked up when Richie came in.

"Took you a while. Was worried you had taken that praying in the bathroom anecdote a bit too literally."

"Oh shut up," Richie told him easily and sat on the edge of the bed after placing his glasses on the nightstand. Kevin scooted up to him, and they gazed at each other like they had on the sofa, unexpectedly shy again. 

Like teenagers, Richie thought. And he hated how much he behaved like one, suddenly feeling gangly in spite of his earlier confidence. But he did want this, knew that he needed it somehow, something he couldn't face away from anymore. He bit down on his apprehensions and kissed Kevin, who didn't hesitate to reciprocate, bringing his hands up to gently cup Richie's elbows, a gesture that struck him as so awkward and innocuous that it shamed him somehow. He had no idea where to put his own hands, let them hover somewhere at Kevin's waist. The kiss was slow and languid, and it didn't seem to change or to end, the two of them stuck in the moment, suspended halfway between chasteness and passion.

The tenderness was so unbearable that Richie had to pull away, that he pushed Kevin back into the sheets with firm hands, that he went back to working at his neck as if his life depended on it. Kevin moaned and tangled his hands in Richie's hair, pulling him in closer. He bucked his hips when Richie brought up a knee between his legs. 

It was good, it was more than good, Richie was almost euphoric with how good it felt for the first time in his life, but he wouldn't stop to think about it, wanted to bury himself in the feeling.

Kevin pushed him off suddenly, sitting up to pull his shirt over his head. His fingers moved on to the buttons of Richie's white dress shirt, but Richie quickly grew impatient by the lull and latched onto him again, his hands roaming over Kevin's torso. Kevin caught his hands and steadied them, forcing him to move slower. He was still pulsating with nerve impulses, but he relented, forced himself to relax, to match the energy of the kiss. Kevin was stroking his cheek with his thumb whilst they were kissing softly, and he tried to focus on the monotony of the movement, tried to calm his racing heartbeat. But without the forcefulness, the raw physicality of it, he was brought back to awareness, could feel and think beyond the press of the body beneath him. 

Kevin brought their foreheads together and let out a hitched breath, his hands stroking Richie's side and then moving towards his collarbone, trailing across the exposed flesh there. Slowly, tenderly. 

Richie flinched.

Kevin paused and opened his eyes. "Richie?" he asked, then frowned. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Richie forced out of himself, but already he was stiff with dread, anxiety coiling deep in his stomach. He moved to kiss Kevin again, but Kevin stopped him with a hand on his jaw and a worried look. Bewildered, Richie brought his hands up to his face and felt a wetness there. He stared at the glistening tips of his fingers, not comprehending. 

"What's wrong?" Kevin crawled back and got up, putting an arm around Richie's back. 

"Nothing, nothing." He brusquely rubbed at his eyes and let out a shaky breath. "I don't know," he finally admitted, wanting to sink into the floor and disappear. "Fuck. Sorry, Kevin, I guess I'm just like your Catholic crackpot."

"Rich— shut up for once in your life," he tightened his grip around Richie. "Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?"

Richie turned his head to look at him. Kevin, as always kind-eyed and fretful and dependable, and it made him want to cry more. "Honestly? Not particularly."

"Okay, that's fine, just—", he looked at a loss for words, and Richie couldn't help but sympathize. It probably wasn't easy, being the manager to a neurotic, repressed mess of a comedian that was always one step away from a hysterical breakdown. "This was a bad idea, I—" he hugged him closer when Richie tried to pull away, "Just stay here, for a while, okay? Let's just stay here for a while." He shifted to his side and pulled Richie down with him so that they were spooning. 

There was something filial about it that made Richie want to squirm away, yet the arm over his waist was a welcome presence and he relented, let himself lean into it. His breathing began to even out and his earlier panic ebbed, until all that was left was a small ache in his chest. Memories were coming to him in the sudden quietness of the bedroom, but he shut his eyes against them and pressed himself harder against Kevin. A shift in the weight of the mattress as Kevin leaned over to turn off the light switch.

There would be consequences to this, probably unpleasant ones, his mortification would only be magnified come morning, but Richie didn't want to think of any of that now, listening in the dark to the steady breath coming from behind him. He thought of Eddie, the limpness of his body when he'd held him for the only time. That, too, another thread of his life he hadn't followed until it was impossible to do so. Behind him, Kevin was breathing deeply, clinging to Richie even in his sleep, but Richie stayed awake for a long while, on the cusp of consciousness, images of arm casts and arcade coins shifting through the shadows on the bedroom wall.

**Author's Note:**

> So Richie's unnamed manager is, as far as I know, the only person to call him 'Rich' and I think that's very adorable for some reason?


End file.
